Audio Recordings
"It was her responsibility to peel the potatoes and put them on the stove, and then she would prepare dinner for the kids."

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Resources

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"It was her responsibility to peel the potatoes and put them on the stove, and then she would prepare dinner for the kids."

Contributor Names

Ramsey, Edgar (Narrator)

Levitas, Susan, 1961- (Interviewer)

Created / Published

1994-08-28

Subject Headings

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African Americans

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Foodways

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Oral history

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Interviews

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Sound recordings

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Work processes

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Hours of labor

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Family-run businesses

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Food industry

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Pies

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Sweet Potato Pie Company (Paterson, N.J.)

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Ethnography

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United States -- New Jersey -- Paterson

Genre

Ethnography

Interviews

Notes

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Interview with Edgar Ramsey, owner, Sweet Potato Pie Company.

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Summary of audio segment: (Separation between work and home?) It wasn't easy, but even with Xerox it wasn't easy; my wife, "Here she had a newborn baby and when she came home, her first responsibility was not so much to cook -- to prepare the dinner -- but to get the potatoes on. So, it was her responsibility to peel the potatoes and put them on the stove to cook, and then she would prepare dinner for the kids . . . the baby would be crying, she was hungry and my wife says, 'Well, you've got to wait until I get these potatoes peeled.' And so by the time they finished cooking, on an average day, I would be home by then and so I would start mixing the batter, but there were times when we might've had functions at Xerox or something and, you know, I wouldn't get home until ten at night or eleven at night, but you still had to mix that batter because the potatoes were ready." It wasn't easy, but we hung in there and we stuck to it. We knew that one day it would pay off. My wife and I have a very close bond and work well together; no drawbacks or negative aspects or liabilities to having a family business; we only had two people, that's not bad. We knew that this was what we wanted to do, so it wasn't a problem.

Medium

Digital Audio Tape

Call Number

AFC 1995/028: WIP-SL-A020

Source Collection

Working in Paterson Project Collection (AFC 1995/028)

Repository

American Folklife Center

Digital Id

http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.afc/afcwip.sla02010

﻿

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